Hi there,

I believe that people who are concerned about war and peace, democracy, the climate catastrophe, and economic and racial justice, are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority—silenced by the corporate media. But we can't do it without your support. Thanks to a group of generous donors, all donations made today will be TRIPLED until midnight ET, which means your $15 gift is worth $45. With your contribution, we can continue to go to where the silence is, to bring you the voices of the silenced majority. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much!

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Senate Confirms Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

HeadlineFeb 09, 2017

The Senate has confirmed Jeff Sessions as the United States attorney general after a 52-47 vote Wednesday evening. Sessions’s confirmation has faced widespread protests over his opposition to the Voting Rights Act and his history of making racist comments. The vote capped a contentious 24 hours. On Tuesday night, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced and rebuked by the Senate for reading a 1986 letter written by Coretta Scott King denouncing Sessions, who was at the time being considered for a federal judgeship. The letter reads, in part, “The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods.” Following Warren’s silencing, several Democratic senators urged their colleagues to vote against him by reading this same letter. Warren’s reading marks the first time Coretta Scott King’s testimony was included in the Congressional Record, even though she had submitted it 30 years ago. At the time, Senate Judiciary Chair Strom Thurmond, a fierce segregationist, refused to enter King’s testimony into the record. We’ll have more on Sessions’s confirmation later in the broadcast.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top